Seattle cops fish slippery nude suspect out of lake

Seattle people like to think that they get the city back to themselves after Labor Day as most of the tourists head home.

But some of the crazies remain.

Seattle police say a man tackled a 16-year-old girl at a popular Seattle park on Tuesday and attacked a young man. Then he stripped naked and jumped into the cold waters of nearby Green Lake.

Police arrested the naked man two hours later after a bizarre pursuit that included the man’s swimming to the middle of the lake where he clung to an orange buoy and a foot chase on nearby Duck Island. At one point the man swam under a police boat, and as officers looked for him, his hand could be seen by onlookers clinging under the bow of the cop’s boat.

He continued to evade officers, running through the blackberry thickets on Duck Island and emerging multiple times in a sprint to the water.

Police eventually sent him to a local hospital for a mental evaluation.

“We don’t believe he has any weapons,” Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said, “especially considering the temperature of the water.”

It all began about 3:20 p.m. when the man attacked the girl and 19-year-old man.

“He tackled them like a linebacker,” said a witness.

During the police chase people gathered on shore to watch as news helicopters covered it live. People standing on a nearby dock said that the man was obviously in excellent shape as he easily swam away from boats and outmaneuvered officers on Duck Island.

For their safety uniformed police were under orders not to enter the water while divers tried to catch the man.

Police said the teenage girl was crying when they arrived. The girl and her 19 year-old brother were taken to a hospital for non-life threatening injuries, and police said the brother suffered a broken finger.

After several people called 911, the man took off his long-sleeved green shirt and other clothes and went into the Green Lake, police said. One of the witnesses said the man, who also threw his sleeping bag at officers, jumped off a dock before swimming to the middle of Green Lake.

Medics and firefighters responded with more than a dozen officers, but the man swam away each time they approached and at points went under water.